Posted on 12/29/2005 10:21:24 AM PST by Dane
Tracking a genetic link to sexuality BY FAYE FLAM Knight Ridder Newspapers
Geneticist Dean Hamer says he never chose to be attracted to men. As we talked inside the renovated Washington, D.C., townhouse he shares with his partner and two dogs, the scientist popularly associated with so-called "gay genes" told me he knew he was gay since he was about 5.
That's what partly motivated Hamer, 54, to switch from basic molecular genetics to studying sexual orientation in 1992. When he told his colleagues at the National Cancer Institute what he was doing, they were puzzled. "It was pretty far out there," he says. Others thought the answer was too obvious - that of course it was genetic.
But outside the scientific community, Hamer says, it's still widely believed that gay people somehow choose their orientation and this further fuels discrimination. (Bush was asked in the presidential debates whether being gay was a choice. He said he didn't know.)
But will studying sexual orientation fight hatred or give it new tools? If scientists identify a "gay gene," will expectant parents use it for selective abortion?
"That scares some straight people away from studying this," says Hamer. "They're afraid of offending someone or causing harm." Most of the leaders in the field are gay, he said, for the same reason female researchers dominate the study of sex differences in the brain.
That limits study of what he considers to be one of the most important aspects of biology and human health. "We have the worst epidemic out there since the plague," he says. "It's spread by sex." Hamer said he was inspired to switch his focus by several studies in the late 1980s, especially one that looked at twins - a standard genetics technique.
If a trait is shared more often by identical twins than by fraternal twins it means there's some genetic component. For men, if one identical twin is gay there's about a 50 percent chance the other will be too. That falls to about 20 percent if they're fraternal. For women, the story is more complicated though science shows biology matters there, too.
Hamer realized he might be able to use the tools of molecular genetics to isolate specific genes. He studied 40 pairs of gay brothers and found a particular marker on the X chromosome that was shared more often when both brothers were gay. When he published his result in 1993 it became known as the "gay gene", but he said this label oversimplified the science. Many straight people have the "gay" version of the marker.
Scientists now know sexual orientation can't be detected from testing any single gene - it's set by a complicated combination of genes and environmental factors.
Only a few studies attempted to replicate Hamer's finding. It remains unresolved. Hamer said other gene findings are followed by hundreds of follow-up studies but the gay gene is not popular subject matter.
Neuroscientist Charles Wysocki and his colleagues at the Monell Chemical Senses Institute investigated the way male body odor caused spikes in women's hormones. They found the effect only in straight women but not lesbians. Intrigued, he followed up with a study suggesting sexual orientation influences not only how you react to the scents of others but how you yourself smell.
Other startling insights have come from studies of animals. By altering a single gene in fruit flies, researchers in Austria created males who courted and tried to mate with males, females with females. And in Oregon, researchers are finding brain differences between straight and exclusively gay rams.
Scientists say it's next to impossible to get federal funding to research anything related to sex, and especially homosexuality. And yet our political and cultural debates often hinge on such issues. Should we allow gay marriage? How do we prevent HIV? How do we educate our children so they don't contract and spread this epidemic? How can we deal with anti-gay discrimination?
Science may not have all the answers, but if given the chance, it could at least inform these debates.
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How can you conclude that? Evolution allows for mutation. It even requires it. It's entirely possible that a mutation is responsible for homosexuality.
Of course, such a mutation might not get very far, but even homosexuals sometimes have children, so such mutations might be passed on.
Shouldn't a women have a choice if she is going to be put through the trauma of raising a gay child. Right now any little inconvience to the mother justifies terminating the embryo. There is no reason why this is different. Either its a mothers choice or it is not.
Ding - good summary.
And not thus a disease.
Here's a clue for you: mutations aren't always bad for the organism. Sometimes they're actually improvements.
Not that homosexuality is an improvement, mind you. It's just that declaring all mutations disease is wrong.
More often molestation.
Well, that's the point - any "gay gene" mutation would be exceedingly rare, as it strikes right at the heart of what makes natural selection work - reproduction. Some homosexuals may have children... not a heck of a lot of them, though, and certainly not enough to represent 1% of the population. The very nature of such a gene would cause it to be on the losing end of the natural selection process.
That is arguable if you put a lot of value in having nicely decorated rooms and designer shoes.
Let's say there's a "gay gene." That does not necessarily answer the many questions currently being discussed. Not by a longshot.
AMEN!!!! I believe if there's a gay gene there's most likely a serial killer or pedophile gene as well. Now I'm not saying being gay is the same as a serial killer, but you see the spectrum and the slippery slope. Next will be beastiality is legal, then sex with minors--after all they were born that way.
But as the article says there's not really one gene that "forces" you to be gay, but it's a combination of environment and genetics. And in today's environment we are encouraging people to be gay, so more and more with the gene will become gay. Will the same happen with other behaviors that are seen as reprehensible today? Slippery slope applies here big-time.
I know what you mean!
...not to mention those Faaaaah-bew-lisssssss cocktail parties...
R3
It is difficult to get funding for anything related to sex??
That certainly didn't impede the discovery of Viagara and all its clones !!
It occurred to me one day when I was twelve or thirteen that girls weren't a dead loss after all, whereupon I became, er, preoccupied, for several years. I suppose the sap could have risen up the other branch just as well, and I've never seen the fact that it didn't as any credit to me, or any shame to those in whom it did.
To tell the truth, I find sexual deviancy a little boring; there are more important things to worry about, some of which have the virtue of actually being our business.
Ah, but in the past there were strong social pressures for having children and wives, even if homosexual. That's changing now, and I suspect that, should homosexuality come to be more socially accepted, there will be FEWER homosexuals over time as homosexuals simply refused to pretend to be heterosexual by having wives and children.
If it were genetic, then more than 50% of identical twins would be gay. The 50% number implies that it is not genetic since identical twins share the same genetic makeup. Or if it is genetic, then some twins can control that behavior.
If it were genetic, then more than 50% of identical twins would be gay. The 50% number implies that it is not genetic since identical twins share the same genetic makeup. Or if it is genetic, then some twins can control that behavior.
You would think, but the reverse will happen. The acceptance of homosexuality will cause more people to experiment and get involved in the lifestyle. There may be some genetic component, but anyone who thinks it is entirely genetic is smoking something.
Actually the article says it's a combination of genetics and environment. 50% link is a strong link and it drops to 20% with fraternal twins, so that dismisses environment as the sole source. Maybe one twin resents his mom more and had more fun with his dad--who knows.
I'll grant that, but even with social pressures to have families, homosexuals would tend to have fewer children, being less interested in the act required to produce them.
Of course, it is silly to be theorizing about a "gay gene" when we know already what creates homosexuals: molestation of children, and poor relationships between male children and fathers.
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